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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28372095">seldom all they seem</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller'>Rehearsal_Dweller</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Do-Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, background Jack/Davey/Katherine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:42:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28372095</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people are just bound to find each other again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Crutchie/Albert DaSilva (Newsies), Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Do-Over [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>71</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>seldom all they seem</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>me: not everything needs to be a series<br/>me: I Know You was the last fic of the year</p><p>me: ... what if I just - (writes 3.6k more words)</p><p>(also I'd like to apologise for how oddly frequently hotshot of all people appears in this??)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sean Denton has known Anthony Larkin since he was four years old.</p><p>(Spot Conlon has known Race Higgins since he was thirteen.)</p><p>When the Larkins moved in – Anthony, Henry, and their momma – something clicked into place for Sean. He didn’t know what it was, or really have the words to explain it, but something felt <em>right</em> when he first met Anthony.</p><p>There’s something familiar about the way Anthony moves through the world that makes Sean feel settled and content inside. Anthony is usually a pretty boundless well of energy, and he likes to throw his arms around Sean when he’s excited or sort of playfully poke at Sean’s arms and it feels like home.</p><p>Sean doesn’t really know what it means, as a kid.</p><p>He does know that when Anthony first calls him <em>Spot</em> – “For your freckles!” – it honestly gives him chills with how right it feels.</p><p>And that’s nothing compared to the day that Spot’s older brother Jack laughs and calls Anthony <em>Racer</em> when he zooms into their house to show Spot something he’d made with his momma and his brother when they’re eight years old.</p><p>Jack says it without even looking up from the sketch he’s working on, but Anthony and Spot both freeze in their tracks.</p><p>“What’d you call me, Jacky?” Anthony says softly.</p><p>Jack looks up, still smiling. “Racer. On account of how you’re always runnin’ around, like you’ve got somebody to beat.”</p><p>“I like it,” says Race, and that’s that.</p><p>It’s a kind of embarrassingly long time before Spot puts the pieces together, really. He’s always felt a sort of echo of another time, of another Race and Jack and of other people besides.</p><p>Race is the one who puts it to words, looking drunkenly at one of Jack’s sketches of his “ghosts.”</p><p>He says, “Maybe you knew them in a past life or something,” and something falls into place inside of Spot.</p><p>Oh, <em>oh</em>. The reason there are people who feel so familiar, feel so <em>right</em>, is that he knew them before. A lifetime ago.</p><p>Spot doesn’t feel it the way Jack does, he knows, because Jack can see the faces of his loved ones clear as day.</p><p>(Jack has never said that he loves them, the two people who always seem to haunt his art, but Spot and Charlie know. They’ve been Jack’s brothers for far too long not to know what love looks like on his face.)</p><p>“Do you think we knew each other in a past life, Spotty?” Race asks that night.</p><p>“I know we did,” Spot tells him. “Can’t you feel it, Racer? Don’t you remember?”</p><p>Race stares at him.</p><p>And then he leans in, pressing their mouths together. It’s awkward and misaligned and too short and oh, <em>oh</em>, is it familiar.</p><p>Race shifts back, sitting on his heels again, he says, “I remember that.”</p><p>It takes Spot a minute to find his voice again.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says. “I remember that, too.”</p><p>Still, it’s a surprise when he sees Jack’s girl on the street outside the bookshop. It’s one thing, Spot supposes, to grow up with people from your first time around.</p><p>It’s another to have dreamy visions of them and then just run into them on the street.</p><p>Spot’s own memories of their first life are more tied up with physical touch anyway – the feel of Race’s arm around his shoulders, or a spit-shake with Jack. He’s sure there are people out there beyond this little circle for him (he was <em>Brooklyn</em>, after all, and there’s no way only the Manhattan kids got a do-over), but he’s just as sure he won’t know them on sight.</p><p>Which is why it takes Hotshot punching him on the shoulder and cursing him out in Irish for not recognizing her for the memory to fall into place.</p><p>“I know it’s Christmas, Hotshot, but you’re generally not supposed to physically assault retail workers,” Spot says, playing casual.</p><p>“I think it’s different when your brother doesn’t <em>fucking recognize you</em>,” Hotshot replies, crossing her arms. “We thought you hadn’t come back, since you and I weren’t – where the fuck have you been, Seán Conlon?”</p><p>“Denton,” Spot corrects softly. “I’m Sean Denton this time. Jack Kelly and I are brothers. And Crutchie, but we don’t call’im that anymore.”</p><p>“You got reborn with the Manhattan boys?”</p><p>“Yeah. Grew up next door to Racer. There’s more of us?”</p><p>“Our whole Brooklyn crew,” Hotshot says. Her expression softens. “Are you and Race –“</p><p>“Yeah,” says Spot. “Yeah. It’s – it’s nice. That we can, this time.”</p><p>“It didn’t stop you last time, if my memory serves,” says Hotshot. She smiles, touching Spot’s shoulder much more gently this time. “I’m happy for you. I’m gonna keep shopping because I still need to find something for Rafaella, but – I’ll stop by and give you my phone number before I leave, okay? Don’t be a stranger.”</p><p>“Yeah, I – I won’t. Hey, Niamh?”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“It’s good to see you again.”</p><p>“It’s good to see you, too.”</p><p>--</p><p>Albert remembers.</p><p>He doesn’t remember <em>why</em> he remembers what he remembers, but he remembers.</p><p>He dreams about a past life, about a whole bunch of boys who were closer to him than his family. Who <em>were</em> his family.</p><p>About a boy with a quick mouth and quicker feet who always seemed to be dragging him into trouble, about a boy in blue who they all seemed to look up to.</p><p>About –</p><p>Albert doesn’t know his name, which drives him <em>nuts</em>, but there’s this one boy who Albert dreams about more than any of the others, and he doesn’t know <em>why</em>. Why is it that the boy with the blond hair and the kind smile and the crutch the one who he always circles back to?</p><p>They don’t seem to have been as close as Albert was with the fast talking one with the cigar, and yet sometimes Albert wakes up from dreaming about him with this ache in his chest from missing him so badly.</p><p>He doesn’t miss any of the other boys so much it hurts.</p><p>His dreams are always silent, just pictures. And yet he still wakes up feeling like he’s just been yanked out of time every time.</p><p>He meets Race first, when he’s twenty-two, and he walks into a lightpole he’s so startled.</p><p>“Shit! Are you okay, man?” the other man says, looking every bit how Albert remembers him save the ever present cigar.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” says Albert. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “You just look like someone I used to know.”</p><p>“Wow, okay, same.” He sticks his hand out to shake Albert’s. “I’m Race.”</p><p>“Albert.”</p><p>“Oh,” says Race, tipping his head to one side. “Yeah, I see it.”</p><p>“See –“</p><p>“That you’re Albert,” Race says. “Jack drew you once, for Charlie.”</p><p>Jack. The name rings a bell, though <em>Charlie</em> doesn’t.</p><p>“And you feel like Albert,” says Race. “Are you busy? The others will want to meet you.”</p><p>“The others?”</p><p>“The boys from our first time around. And Kathy, she’s back, too. Are you free?”</p><p>Albert shakes his head <em>incredibly</em> reluctantly. “I’ve got to get to class.”</p><p>“I won’t keep you then,” says Race.</p><p>It’s not until he’s taking his books out in the class he barely made that he realizes he didn’t get a phone number or anything from Race.</p><p>He’s still on his own.</p><p>As the universe would have it, that isn’t the case for long.</p><p>He meets Davey a few weeks later, and it isn’t the same sort of whack over the head that seeing Race had been, but there’s a gentle familiarity about him. Davey is walking down the street ahead of Albert, and a glove falls from his pocket as he walks.</p><p>“Hey!” Albert calls, scooping it up and running to catch up. Davey falls still almost instantly. “Hey, you dropped this.”</p><p>“Albert?” he says.</p><p>“Uh, yeah,” Albert says, taking in the familiar appearance of the man in front of him but with no name coming to mind.</p><p>“I’m Davey,” Davey says, and of course he is. He’s just as tall and lean as he was last time, though he looks somewhat better fed this time around. “Race said he’d run into you. How are you doing?”</p><p>“I’m good, Dave,” says Albert, feeling a little stunned. “Real good. How are you?”</p><p>“Good,” says Davey. He rocks back on his heels, studying Albert. “A lot better now I’ve got my family back together. Have you seen any of the others?”</p><p>Albert shakes his head.</p><p>“Would you like to?” Davey asks, tipping his head to one side. “I’m meeting up with Race and Spot and Charlie now.”</p><p>Charlie, that name again. It feels like Albert <em>should </em>know who it belongs to, and yet – nothing.</p><p>“I don’t want to intrude.”</p><p>“We’ve been waiting for you, Al,” Davey says. He shakes his head. “You wouldn’t be intruding at all.”</p><p>So he lets Davey drag him along to a coffee shop, where they find three young men about their age waiting for them – well, waiting for Davey, but waiting for them. Race is one of them, and Albert recognizes the shorter guy next to him as Spot in a sort of vague way, and the third is –</p><p>Oh.</p><p><em>Oh</em>.</p><p>“Albert!” Race calls, waving.</p><p>The third person, the one Davey had called Charlie, but who’s definitely Albert’s mystery boy, turns so fast that the footrest of his wheelchair catches on the chair next to him and he gets caught.</p><p>“Albert?” he says.</p><p>“Hey,” Albert replies. He can’t breathe.</p><p>“Crutchie. I was Crutchie, last time,” Charlie says. A lot of little details click into place all at once for Albert.</p><p>“Yeah,” Albert says, voice hoarse. “Yeah, I know.”</p><p>“I don’t use it anymore.”</p><p>“Makes sense.”</p><p>“It’s good to see you.”</p><p>Albert nods.</p><p>He sort of falls into the chair next to Charlie, opening his mouth to respond in kind before closing it again, his voice failing him.</p><p>“Al?”</p><p>“I think I was in love with you last time,” Albert blurts.</p><p>Race chokes on his drink. Spot pats his back, and Davey swats at the side of his head.</p><p>“Oh,” says Charlie.</p><p>“Yeah,” says Albert.</p><p>“Same.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Charlie reaches over and takes Albert’s hand. “How’re you doing right now, Al?”</p><p>“Little shaken, gimme a sec,” says Albert.</p><p>Charlie nods. “Yeah, no, take your time.”</p><p>“You – really?” Albert says softly.</p><p>Charlie squeezes Albert’s fingers. “Yeah. You?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Cool.”</p><p>“You know you’re never getting rid of me now, right, Charlie?”</p><p>Charlie grins, and his smile is so familiar to Albert that it makes his heart ache, but for once it’s not a sad feeling. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Al.”</p><p>--</p><p>Benji, generally speaking, doesn’t remember people. Not directly, anyway. There are plenty of people in his lives who have made a significantly solid enough impression to stick in his mind, but most of the time – even most of the time in his modern life – it’s less the face or the voice that sticks but a textural impression.</p><p>Sometimes he touches something and it feels like home; sometimes the feel of a fabric under his fingers throws him back a hundred years to the vest he wore as a newsboy, the texture of a page reminds him inescapably of the sketchbook the boys banded together to give Jack for his sixteenth birthday, the touch of someone’s skin reminds him of the only person he ever thought he might be in love with.</p><p>(He wasn’t, but he certainly considered the possibility for a while.)</p><p>He’s pretty sure his sister lived another life, too, just based on things she says from time to time, but he’s almost as sure that they didn’t know each other.</p><p>That’s sort of an odd feeling.</p><p>He’s sitting at his parents’ house a few days before Christmas, knitting a scarf with a particular pattern that feels almost painfully familiar for no one in particular, when his sister bursts through the front door looking like she’s seen a ghost.</p><p>“Niamh?” Benji asks. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“What? Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine,” says Niamh. “I just – I ran into someone I used to know.”</p><p>“How used to?” Benji says casually. “Like, elementary school? Or eighteen ninety-nine?”</p><p>He doesn’t quite mean to say it, but something about this scarf has him feeling the past on a much more surface level than usual and it just sort of comes out before he can stop it.</p><p>Niamh looks up at him sharply. “What do you know about 1899?”</p><p>“Newsboy strike,” says Benji, “and girl, I suppose. Plenty of newsgirls. And this damned <em>scarf</em>, which I think I’m recreating.” Benji raises an eyebrow. “I was there. Were you?”</p><p>“I was,” Niamh says, suspicious. “I don’t recognize you.”</p><p>“That’s two of us, but I don’t really remember, ah, faces,” says Benji. “You weren’t Manhattan though, were you?”</p><p>“No,” says Niamh. “Brooklyn. I was Hotshot.”</p><p>“Buttons,” Benji says. “So, I’ll ask again, <em>Hotshot</em>. Was it someone from this life, or –“</p><p>“Spot, it was Spot,” Niamh replies. “He and I were siblings last time.”</p><p>“<em>Were</em> you?” says Benji. “I didn’t know that.”</p><p>“We kept it quiet.” Niamh frowns. “It’s like the two’a you got swapped, or something. He said he grew up with a bunch’a reborn Manhattan boys.”</p><p>“Interesting,” Benji says quietly.</p><p>“I bet there’s people you know that he knows. We oughtta get everybody together sometime.”</p><p>“Could be fun.”</p><p>Niamh nods. “I’m gonna – I’m gonna go up and finish wrapping my gifts.”</p><p>“Right. Wait – Nee!”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>“Oh. Yeah. It was nice.”</p><p>Benji nods. “Good.”</p><p>He doesn’t meet any of his <em>own</em> people until a few weeks later. It’s mid-January and he’s teaching a sewing class for teenagers, and one of his students – a seventeen-year-old boy with wild curls who looks familiar in a way that’s hard for Benji to place – curses loudly.</p><p>“Hey, Les, what’s up?”</p><p>“I’m never going to get this,” Les groans. “I fucked it up <em>again</em>.”</p><p>“No, see,” says Benji, reaching over to inspect Les’s project. “You just ran out of bobbin thread. You can redo the seam with a new bobbin, it’ll be fine.”</p><p>“I should just give up.”</p><p>“You’ve got this, Les.” Benji ruffles his hair, which he usually wouldn’t do but it just feels like the right thing to do in the moment. It’s familiar, old memories quietly filtering back in.</p><p>“Thanks, Buttons,” Les says softly.</p><p>Benji freezes. “What?”</p><p>Les looks up at him. “Oh. I – hi.”</p><p>“Hey, kiddo,” says Benji.</p><p>“Davey’s gonna flip.”</p><p>“Davey’s back, too?”</p><p>“A lot of us are.” Les drags his fingers through his hair.</p><p>“I guess I kinda knew that,” says Benji. “My sister was Brooklyn.”</p><p>“Wait, really?” says Les, tipping his head to one side. “Davey, Sarah, and I were all born into the same family again. They’re even still twins.”</p><p>“Huh,” Benji.</p><p>“I’m gonna finish this,” says Les, gesturing to his project. “But Davey’s picking me up today. You should come outside and see him.”</p><p>Benji nods.</p><p>For all that – in this life and his last – Benji has never really had a memory for faces, meeting Davey no-longer-Jacobs hits him like a ton of bricks.</p><p>“Davey?” he says.</p><p>Davey whips around. “Benny!”</p><p>“Davey!”</p><p>Davey runs over, pulling Benji into the tightest hug he’s had in years. “Hi.”</p><p>“Oh my god, Dave, I made you a scarf,” Benji says, stepping back. He digs the scarf he knit in December out of his bag. “I didn’t mean to, but –“</p><p>“Is this the same as the one I wore that first winter?” Davey asks, stunned. He runs a finger tentatively along a row of stitching.</p><p>“Ninety-nine?” asks Benji. Davey nods. “Then yeah. I was in a mood to knit last month and this is what I ended up with. I think it’s the yarn; I picked it up and the winter of ninety-nine came flooding back.” He holds the scarf out to Davey. “Take it, Dave. It’s yours.”</p><p>“Benny –“</p><p>“David,” Benji says. “Take the goddamn scarf, take your brother home, and get in touch sometime, okay? I don’t – I don’t remember <em>people</em> well, but I remember you.”</p><p>Davey pats Benji’s shoulder, then makes a point of carefully winding the scarf around his neck. “Thanks, Buttons.”</p><p>“You’re welcome.”</p><p>“I’ve missed you, too, you know.”</p><p>Benji smiles. “Yeah, Davey. I know.”</p><p>--</p><p>Les knows everything there is to know about reincarnation. He knows that it’s relatively uncommon, but scientifically documented. He knows they often come in “cascades,” which is the name science has given the phenomenon of a handful of people who were deeply connected in their first life coming back all at once. He knows nobody really knows why it happens, or what triggers a cascade, or how fate decides who gets to come back.</p><p>He knows he’s the youngest in a cascade that started with Katherine, one that’s probably bigger than most but it’s hard to know.</p><p>He’s fascinated by the whole thing, but more than that he just counts himself lucky.</p><p>Everybody’s experience of reincarnation is different, and sometimes it’s harder to articulate how those memories fall than others.</p><p>Les remembers the feel of his siblings’ hugs, of a hundred different hands in his hair. He remembers getting beat up and kicked around and he remembers fighting back. Sometimes he wakes up from dreams with phantom aches and pains from injuries that healed a hundred years ago.</p><p>Those are the days he wishes he were a little more normal.</p><p>But then there are days like the one where he meets Race again –</p><p>“Les?” Race says, scooping him up into a spinning hug, and even though Les is seventeen and he’s the same height as Race, Race manages to whirl him around a few times. “Oh, man, Les! You look so grown up!”</p><p>“I <i>am</i> grown up!” says Les, laughing.</p><p>Race sets him back on his feet, stepping back to look at him with his hands on his hips. “You’re the spitting image of Davey, I swear to God.”</p><p>“Aw, no, no way,” Les replies. “I’ve never been that dorky in my <em>lives</em>.”</p><p>Race laughs. “I’ll allow that for now, Lessy. But I betcha if we put’cha in a tie and a vest all buttoned up you’d look just like Davey on that first day.”</p><p>Les scrunches his nose up. “<em>Noooo</em>!”</p><p>- and the one where Jack and Davey actually kiss in public for the first time -</p><p>“Gross,” Les says, out of brotherly obligation, but there’s actually a warm happiness settling in his chest at the sight. Maybe <em>this</em> is why, right? Maybe this is why he wakes up screaming some nights, why his hands ache from fights he got into the <em>last</em> time he was eighteen, why they’ve all come back. Jack and Davey could never have done <em>that</em> in their first life, no matter how much they wanted to. Sure, not everyone really gets what they’ve got going between them and Kathy, but there’s so much more room for them to be <em>them</em> now.</p><p>He knows Spot and Race are the same way, and Charlie and Albert, and <em>God</em>, they were a really queer group for 1900, weren’t they? No wonder the universe decided <em>now</em> s the time for another go around, when the world is kinder.  </p><p>Jack reaches over and ruffles up Les’s hair. “Shut up.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” says Les, batting his hand away. “You two are saps.”</p><p>“Can you blame us?” says Davey, leaning on Jack and looking over at him fondly.</p><p>“No,” says Les, “I can’t.”</p><p>- or the day he finally ran into Hotshot on the street.</p><p>“You!” she says, stopping dead.</p><p>“Me?” Les replies, curious. This girl looks familiar in the way their cascade always look familiar before their identity clicks.</p><p>Hotshot slugs him in the upper arm. “Les fuckin’ Jacobs, holy shit!”</p><p>“Hey!” Les replies, throwing an arm around her shoulders. They’d been buddies in the old days, bonding quietly at relatively early union meetings over being the younger sibling of someone like <em>that.</em></p><p>“You’re so tall now,” Hotshot says softly.</p><p>He’d been taller than her when she died – she’d been eighteen, he’d been fourteen – but he hadn’t reached his full skyscraping six and some feet until a few years later.</p><p>“Yeah,” Les says, just as soft. He shifts away, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Hey. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Back again, ain’t I? S’fine, Les,” says Hotshot.</p><p>“I didn’t think you would be,” Les confesses. “Spot –“</p><p>“Came back with Jack Kelly and Crutchie, yeah. I know.” She pulls her braid over her shoulder. “I got reborn with my crew. Honestly, I think we’re two separate cascades that happened to coincide; we just got lucky enough to still find each other.”</p><p>“Very,” says Les. “It’s good to see you, Hotshot, but I’ve gotta get goin’. Keep in touch?”</p><p>“I’ll get’cha number from Spot.”</p><p>Les nods and keeps walking.</p><p>He doesn’t know why they came back. Why here, why now. Why sometimes it feels like he can only remember the bad times, the hurts. The heartaches.</p><p>But some days –</p><p>Les lets himself into Jack and Spot’s apartment. He’s the last to arrive, and the assembled former newsies barely seem to register him. Race and Davey are talking on the couch, Buttons on the floor in front of them leaning against Davey’s legs and knitting, occasionally throwing a comment into their conversation. Katherine sits to Davey’s other side, absently holding his hand while she talks to Spot. Jack and Albert are arguing over something while Sarah and Charlie egg them on. It’s familiar, in the warm, solid way being with these people always is.</p><p>- some days Les doesn’t need all the answers. He has his family, he has a second chance, he has a world full of new horizons to chase.</p><p>Some days, Les can forget <em>understanding</em> his life, and just be content to live in it.</p>
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